It has taken 10 years for me to finally feel secure enough to share this with everyone. I now feel cofident that coming out of the closet will help others with the same issue. I am addicted to chocolate. If you are smart, when there is chocolate around, you will get out of my way. Today for a snack, I had a cup of thick creamy chocolate with fried dough for dipping. The American culture needs a lesson on Churros y Chocolate. It is a fact that every women has attacked a cup of melted chocolate with junk food suitable for dipping. This dirty little secret is something that all American women take part in behind closed doors. I am going to be the one to bring this vital custom home with me so we no longer have to be closest chocolate junkies.
It is still very abstract to me that españoles can eat all the time and eat foods that we only associate with weight gain. A typical lunch and dinner starts with a huge bowl of soup or a heaping dish of pasta. The second course is always a meat dish (which 99.9% of the time is pork) with bread. Dessert is two pieces of fruit and café con leche. If this buffet doesn’t fill you up, you only have to wait 2 hours for snack time. You can go the traditional wine with your choice of smoked mini ham sandwiches, patee con queso, Spanish omelets, or spring rolls. There is also the more feminine approach of café con leche with some type of pastry stuffed with a rich, thick chocolate and whipped cream.
After all this eating, I expected to see case after case of clogged arteries my first day of internship in the emergency department. This was not the case. Even at the hospital it is rare to find a person approaching that fine line between overweight and obese. When discussing this topic among the doctors there answer was simple, “we don’t worry about what we eat, we just live life.” It is really uncommon to find weight watchers, the zone diet plan or other obscure yo yo diet trends in Spain. Everyone is forced to walk at least 5-10 miles a day to go to the market for groceries, meet some friends for coffee, or go to school or work. Food isn’t used as an emotion tool for coping, but rather a pivot point for socialization and bringing people together. When the Spanish sit down for a meal they actually chew their food and acknowledge others at the table. You can expect a typical American to inhale dinner and ignore everyone at the table in order to catch the newest episode of Jersey Shore. It is more common in the states to live to eat, rather than eating to live. The Spanish culture understands their priorities and how to take time to live life.
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